Book Review…ish: The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg

Have you ever had a bad break-up with a book? One that you loved: it started out pristine and in perfect conditions, the cover calling out to you coyly…it started out slow, you got to know each other and then BAM you stay up all night with each other getting more and more involved. Soon the cover is falling apart, pages are stuck together because of food stains, and it’s gone from being new to worn. But you still love it.

And then one day…it’s done, it’s gone from your life in a second. And you are left shell-shocked, wanting more, but knowing you won’t get any.

That was like me and the The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series. For those that don’t know me that well, this might seem a bit over dramatic, but my dear friend Sam and my husband were present at the time I finished the last Liz Salander book. It was not a pretty sight. I had become an addict.

My literary world came crashing down around me…no longer was I interested in reading about Sookie Stackhouse’s latest vampire adventures…I could not even be consoled by the culinary humor of Goldy Schultz, the cater/part-time crime solver heroine in Diane Mott Davidson novels.

I got over it eventually and moved on to other books, as we all do. But that one will always hold a special place in my heart.

That’s why I was intrigued by, The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg when the cover said it was meant for fans of Steig Larsson. Obviously I bought it.

So my thoughts…without giving anything away.

The book was a great mystery. It had the components of romance, mystery, grotesqueness, crime, and twists necessary to be a great book. If you’re a fan of mystery books that are not conventional, and don’t have easy to guess endings (i.e. not James Patterson novels, which…while I love, get predictable after a while), get it.

Lackberg does a great job of building the main character, Erica Flack and the role she plays untangling the mystery after finding her old friend Alex dead in a bathtub. Trust me, you won’t guess it…unless you’re one of those people (like myself) who flips to the end and reads the end first. Lackberg can definitely paint a beautiful picture, so that you get sucked into the book and feel like you’re watching the story unfold before you.

BUT…this is no Steig Larsson book. This story, unfortunately, does not have the same nuanced complexities as Larsson’s book does, and since its not over 1000 pages long, you don’t get the feeling like you know the characters inside and out. To put it bluntly, The Ice Princess is a decent replacement for Larsson’s books, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing.

In the end: I say read it, it’s pretty good, but don’t expect to be provoked and sucked in, in the same way you were with Larsson’s books.